The boxes are swollen
and tense,
holding their breath
I lie on the floor and
the stacked boxes tower
threatening to topple
At the weekend friends come around
and the boxes gasp open,
books
spill onto shelves, computer networks
assemble themselves, and packaging
leaps into the loftspace
Now,
the silence spoons me, and I hear
all the tiny sounds of the house:
the faraway whoo of the boiler
flue,
the spluttering exhalation
of the fridge
And, like the boxes, I am
learning to breathe again